Damage or disease that affects the integral structure of a tissue or bone structure, such as a vertebral body within an individual's spinal column, may lead to neurologic impairment with possible permanent damage to the surrounding tissue. Maintaining or re-establishing proper anatomic spacing within a tissue or bone structure, such as the spinal column, is critical to ensuring continued functionality of the surrounding tissue and for the spinal column, the spinal cord and nerve roots and therefore, avoidance of long term serious neurological, vascular, or other systemic impairments.
Typically, spacer-type of devices have a fixed overall length and are implanted without the ability of the inserting instrument to adjust the size of the spacing required without using multiple insertion instrumentation. A need exists for a spacer-type implant and a multipurpose instrument to be used to implant a spacer-type implant that allows the surgeon to minimize the size of the surgical incision and facilitate the operative technique by allowing for distraction and implant insertion with one instrument only, thereby decreasing patient morbidity.